In a rare move, CSIRO has defended itself against attacks by Australia’s conservative politicians and the Rupert Murdock media. The fossil fuel focused are reacting to the latest CSIRO GenCost report, which reaffirms yet again that renewables are the cheapest form of electricity generation. CSIRO is Australia’s premier science and … [continued]
The plan includes a big push in Britain for carbon capture usage and storage, floating offshore wind industry, green hydrogen, small modular reactors, insulation of homes, EV charging infrastructure, and heat pumps. Last week, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero unveiled a plan to strengthen Britain’s long-term energy … [continued]
Wrights Law isn’t going to save the deep inefficiencies of SMRs. As I pointed out two years ago, the world tried tiny commercial nuclear reactors in the 1960s and 1970s, they were too expensive.
Already 2.4 times as expensive as very, very expensive Hinkley. First of a kind, so very likely to double or more in price. Very unlikely to be built before 2040 due to long-tailed risks.
Will the small modular nuclear reactor community be able to find an optimized point on the physics vs modularity curve? I don’t think so, and discussed it with Bent Flyvbjerg, global megaproject expert.
Shah’s perspective is that we don’t have the ability to go into Sim City and design whatever we want. We have to work with pre-existing facilities.
Shah’s perspective is that investing 3-5 times more in transmission and expecting improvements in battery storage is a risky strategy. Shah is bullish on nuclear, especially putting new SMRs on retiring coal plants where transmission is already built.
Rick Perry, the former Governor of Texas and former Secretary of the Department of Energy, told Fox News in an interview that we need base load power. He believes we need base load power because it is what we use when we turn a light on at 2:00 in the … [continued]
People asserting that SMRs are the primary or only answer to energy generation either don’t know what they are talking about, are actively dissembling or are intentionally delaying climate action.
In the first half of this CleanTech Talk interview, Michael Barnard sits down with Paul Werbos, Ph.D. Co-Director of the Center for Intelligent Optimization and Networks, to talk about all things climate change.
